Establishment of a myofibroblast cell line from the gastrointestinal tract of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar

Cell lines are cultures of animal cells that can be propagated repeatedly and used as convenient alternatives to whole animals in research. The aquaculture of Atlantic salmon is an economically important industry that is looking to soybean meal as a cheap and readily available component for feeds of the future, but soybean meal has been found to cause gut inflammation, which restricts growth. Myofibroblasts regulate inflammation so the availability of a cell line could allow the soybean components responsible for inflammation to be identified and studied more quickly than with fish. Towards this goal, we describe herein a cell line, with characteristics of myofibroblasts, derived from the gut of Atlantic salmon.